


looking for something dumb to do (i think i wanna marry you)

by askmeaboutmyoctopustheory



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Asexual Natasha Romanov, Budapest, Fake Marriage, Gen, M/M, Male-Female Friendship, Married for Convenience, Pansexual Clint Barton, Platonic Cuddling, Winterhawk only at the end, mentions of injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-11
Updated: 2019-10-11
Packaged: 2020-12-09 00:02:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20985479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/askmeaboutmyoctopustheory/pseuds/askmeaboutmyoctopustheory
Summary: A shotgun wedding first, the benefits of marriage laterand why not just keep it around?





	looking for something dumb to do (i think i wanna marry you)

**Author's Note:**

> ayyye hey so this fic has been a long time coming if i'm honest
> 
> i love brOTP clintasha and i especially love 'repeatedly married and divorced for cover stories' which isn't what this is but whatever
> 
> also winterhawk wormed it's way in here oops
> 
> find me on twit @_AMAMOT

Coulson looked tired and resigned when Clint finally showed up to their extraction point. He wasn’t even really surprised that he had the Widow in tow. 

“Phil- I couldn’t. She’s a kid.” Clint explained poorly with his hands gesturing to the redhead who just raised an eyebrow at him and scoffed. “A kid who could dismember us both but still.”

“I’m not that much younger than you asshole.” The Widow shot back in unaccented English.

“Just for that she can stay.” Coulson smiled wanly but it didn’t meet his eyes. “You’ll need to go underground for a while. Figure out a cover and I’ll work things out with SHIELD.”

➵🕷 **three months later **➵🕷

Natasha’s slim hand slipped into Clint’s much larger and calloused one. He had a simple gold ring on a chain under his t-shirt and she had a pawned engagement ring with a matching gold wedding band. They were meeting Coulson at one of SHIELD’s conference centers. 

“Gotta say, this was the more favorable possibility for your cover story.” Phil mused as he looked over their hands and the ring. “You didn’t end up killing each other or in jail so good work Hawkeye.”  
  
“Thanks?” Clint said, confused. “I think?”  
  
“I wasn’t thanking you.” Coulson clarified. “You still brought in a foreign spy and known HYDRA ally who you were sent to _ kill. _”

“Hey-”  


“I-”  
  
“Hey hey. You made the right choice.” Coulson backed up a bit as they both seemed to bristle and prepare to fight. “And your uh…” he gestured to their hands still joined. “Arrangement? Makes this a lot easier. This is just a- uh. Work thing, right?”  
  
“Christ, Phil.” Clint dropped Natasha’s hand like it was burning him. “Yes it’s a work thing she’s not really my type.”  
  
“The Widow is anyone’s type.” Natasha said morbidly as Phil just looked amused. “But god help me, this is purely convenience.”

Phil had them sign some paperwork, handed Natasha her new SHIELD badge with her new credentials on it and sent them on their way. Their experience of traveling across the US on their way back to headquarters had led them to establish a familiar rhythm. Which was good since news of Clint’s new bride had apparently spread and they needed to keep appearances. For an organization of spies, SHIELD agents were nosy as hell.

“Oh shit we can like. Get stuff!” Clint realized out loud after the third agent that had come up and congratulated them. 

Which is how they found themselves at a way too fancy restaurant consuming expensive wine that Natasha was questionably old enough to drink. Their coworkers and peers were milling about the reception hall and there was a pile of presents on a nearby table. They were both really just looking forward to the cake. 

Clint didn’t really think much of their marriage after that point past the obvious part of them cohabiting and being work partners. They knew each other well and could almost work as a singular unit. They would sit at night and eat pizza in the shitty one bedroom loft that Nat had moved into with Clint and sleep side-by-side at night. They hadn’t had any form of romantic affectations since the peck on the lips that had sealed their marriage in the chapel in Vegas but people tended to not be touchy-feely towards assassins and they enjoyed crowding into each other’s space and human contact. 

In March when Phil handed Clint a boring sheaf of paperwork, he just looked at their handler with confusion. Coulson just looked at him amusedly and gestured at the folder. When Clint opened it, Phil watched as the realization dawned on his face.

“Oh shit!” Clint punched the air. “Joined taxes!”

“Yep. Congrats you’re officially an old married.” 

On their one year anniversary, Coulson gives them both a small package that feels like some sort of clothing inside. He grins at them both to open it and inside Clint’s is a red shirt that says “IF LOST RETURN TO NATASHA.” Natasha looks amused and opens hers to reveal a purple shirt that says “I AM NATASHA”

“You two ever gonna get this annulled?” Coulson has long since stopped trying to figure out their dynamic.

They just look at each other and shrug. 

“Eventually, probably.” Clint said.

  
“Doesn’t really seem important.” Nat agreed. 

And it didn’t. They lived together, worked together, made fun of each other, and in their own way they did love each other. A few months later they were laying perpendicularly on their shitty sectional in Clint’s shitty apartment when Natasha tapped him lightly on the shoulder. He had his aids in but she started signing anyway. She did that once and a while when she wanted to say things she wasn’t ready or comfortable saying out loud yet. 

_ “Clint?” _ She signed his namesign in front of her where she had her head pillowed on his chest. 

“Yeah ‘Tasha?” He said out loud since she was laying on one of his arms and he was fine with talking. 

_ “I think I’m-” _ Her hands faltered and shook as she began fingerspelling. “ _ I’m asexual.” _

“That’s fine.” Clint’s rumbling voice against her head was comforting and he stroked her hair gently. “I’m happy for you.”  
  
“Thanks.” She said softly in response. “I haven’t… told anyone. I just learned it was a thing.”

“Mmm” Clint hummed in agreement. “We can get new shirts that say “All or Nothing” on them”

Natasha just leaned into the contact of his hand still stroking her head. “Hey Clint?” He hummed in response again, his chest vibrating under her head. “I love you. Like-”  
  
“I love you too.” Clint said. “No hetero.”  


➵🕷 

Natasha’s Hungarian was shaky at best but she managed to find her way to the correct desk at the hospital. She had been racing around trying to find where Clint was and was almost at her wits end. 

“_ Only family allowed.” _The nurse said to her in Hungarian, keeping her from going back into the triage station. 

Natasha’s finger itched to reach for her Widow’s Bites but she was just worked up. Then she remebered. “_ He’s my husband.” _

She pulled her wedding ring out on the chain around her neck. The nurse didn’t look convinced but brought her back to Clint’s room anyway. He was more bruise than not and had several drip lines and IV’s in. 

She paced back and forth at the foot of his bed for what could have been hours or just a few minutes before he came to. 

“Nat?” He said blearily. “Oh thank god.”  
  
“You! I thought you’d be dead goddamnit.” Natasha hissed at him, brandishing her finger. “You can’t leave me an actual widow.”  


“Aw you do care.” Clint grinned, but also looked a little doped up from painkiller. “Hey. It’s ok. I’m ok.”  
  
“Your body is more purple than your clothes.” Natasha eyed the bruises. 

Clint shrugged and reached out to take her hand. “It’s ok.” He looked at her and said their stupid little phrase they held onto like a promise. “For you I’d leave it all.”  
  
“I’d leave it all.”

➵🕷 

When the Avengers officially formed, there really seemed to be no reason for their marriage to continue. They had a full private hospital and a whole company to handle their taxes. Clint was recovering in his new tower apartment when Nat first brought it up.

“Aw done with me so soon?”

“We’ve been married over 5 years.” Natasha bemused. 

“Feels like I met you yesterday with a bag of trick arrows and a deathwish.” 

“I have the divorce papers. But we don’t have to.”  
  
Clint shrugged. “Might be good I suppose. Get out dating again. Be a bachelor in Manhattan.”  
  
Natasha just snorted and dropped the sheaf of paper by his feet onto the coffee table. She busied herself making some coffee and didn’t mention the divorce papers again.

She didn’t mention them throughout the extended relationship that Clint and Bucky got into after the latter moved into the tower. When Clint proposed to Bucky on the roof under a full moon, it didn’t feel like the right time to bring it up.

“If any can show just cause that this couple should not be wedded in holy matrimony, speak now or forever hold your peace.” Bruce muttered out at the small ceremony.

Bucky and Clint were grinning stupidly at each other and almost didn’t notice the ripple of gasps that spread over the small group of guests. Natasha cleared her throat and was standing in the middle of the gathered, an unreadable expression on her face.

“Oh dammit.” Clint dropped Bucky’s hands and jogged down the aisle to where Natasha was seated. 

She had pulled a pen out of nowhere and Clint scrawled his signature on the byline. She smiled, kissed his cheek and he jogged back. Bucky just beamed beatifically and re-took his hands. Bruce blinked slightly and proceeded with the ceremony. 

“Did you know he was still married?” Someone asked Bucky later at the reception.

“Oh yeah.” he said, watching Clint and Natasha dance. “Figured she’d have it all worked out how to remedy it. Not that anyone really cares what we are all up to.”  
  
Clint felt his husband’s eyes on him and squeezed Natasha’s hand.

  
“I’d leave it all.”  
  
“No you wouldn’t.” She retorted but smiled. “I love you Hawkeye.”  
  
“I love you too.”

**Author's Note:**

> so the little phrase clint and nat say ( i wanted them to have a sorta "'til the end of the line") is from the song 'budapest' which i know doesn't work out with the timeline but idc and also i feel like they would be dorks like that


End file.
